photo credit: Hunter-Desportes
Pan Am is a recent TV show, starring Christina Ricci, with uneven reviews but which recreates beautifully the drama and glamour of commercial air travel in its early days. It was expensive, but people dressed up, were served good food, and seats were comfortable. “”Stewardesses”" brought you pillows and you could stroll in the side aisles. Air travel sure has changed!
Airlines come and go. Pan Am is no more. TWA is just an old-fashioned name. Alleghany Airlines sounds like fiction, like a go-cart with wings. And today, we have forgotten that air travel can be glamorous.
Narrow seats and invasive security is never going to seem like fun, but the world has opened to us, and we shouldn’t forget that. The ability to fly for relatively little money has made world travel accessible, yet it remains miraculous. Watch an old Western: Those settlers left the East and settled in Nebraska or Oregon or California, and never saw again the family and friends they left behind. How could they? Before the transcontinental railroad, the trip was long and hazardous. Even train travel took a long time and was taken on at some risk. The stagecoach? If Indians didn’t get you, the road dust did.
That trip of many weeks is now accomplished overnight, and you can see a movie in the process!
photo credit: shaggyshoo
People once spent months on cruise ships, crossing the Atlantic for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Europe. Wealth and leisure were necessary to even consider the voyage. Now we can fly to Europe for a weekend! Travel time is such a small portion of the trip that the world itself has opened up to even people of moderate means. We can even conduct business all over the world. Commercial air travel is a wonderous thing that has changed much of how we live.
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